Jamal Awil

PRE.A — PRE.A · Reading the Law: Legal Reasoning & Case Briefing

PRE pillar · Pre-program

How to read a US judicial opinion, distinguish holding from dicta, brief a case in IRAC, and follow citation chains. The skill that unlocks all subsequent IP coursework.

Essential books

• ★ Ruggero Aldisert — Logic for Lawyers
• ★ Frederick Schauer — Thinking Like a Lawyer
• ★ Steven Burton — Intro to Law and Legal Reasoning
• ★ Hart & Sacks — The Legal Process
• ★ Merges, Menell & Lemley — IP in the New Tech Age* (intro chapters)

Supplementary books

• ☆ Bryan Garner — The Redbook
• ☆ Reference work — The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation
• ☆ Herma Hill Kay — Intro to the American Legal System
• ☆ John Makdisi — Intro to the Study of Law
• ☆ Kent Syverud — The Rules of the Game

Papers (48)

1. Frederick Schauer (1988). Formalism Late 20th century — legal theory consolidation Yale Law Journal, 97(4), 509–548

Argues that rule-based formalism is a defensible and often functional approach to legal decision-making, not merely a naive failure of judgment; distinguishes strong from weak formalism and rehabilitates the concept against realist critique.

2. Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule (2002). Interpretation and Institutions Early 21st century — institutional turn Michigan Law Review, 101(4), 885–951

Proposes that legal interpretation cannot be evaluated apart from the institutional actors doing the interpreting; calls for "institutional turn" that considers judicial competence and systemic effects rather than abstract interpretive theories alone.

3. Richard A. Posner (2005). The Law and Economics of Contract Interpretation Early 21st century — law and economics maturity Texas Law Review, 83(6), 1581–1614

Applies economic reasoning to the problem of contractual ambiguity, showing how wealth-maximization norms can systematically guide judicial interpretive choices — an accessible model of law-and-economics legal reasoning for entering students.

4. Richard A. Posner (1990). What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law? Late 20th century — pragmatist jurisprudence Southern California Law Review, 63(6), 1653–1670

Argues that philosophical pragmatism — judging ideas by their practical consequences rather than correspondence to fixed principles — is the most honest description of how good judges actually reason; foundational for realist legal reasoning.

5. Philip Bobbitt (1991). Reflections Inspired by My Critics Late 20th century — constitutional theory Texas Law Review, 72(7), 1869–1920

Responds to critics of his "modalities of constitutional argument" framework; defends the plurality of legitimate legal arguments (textual, historical, prudential, structural, doctrinal, ethical) as a positive account of legal reasoning, not relativism.

6. Ronald Dworkin (1967). The Model of Rules Mid-20th century — jurisprudential foundations University of Chicago Law Review, 35(1), 14–46

Distinguishes legal rules (all-or-nothing application) from principles (dimension of weight), attacking Hart's positivism and arguing that judges draw on principles not reducible to an authoritative rule of recognition; sets the terms of legal theory debate for decades.

7. H.L.A. Hart (1958). Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals Mid-20th century — analytic jurisprudence Harvard Law Review, 71(4), 593–629

Classic articulation of legal positivism; argues that the question of what the law is and the question of what the law ought to be are analytically separate — entry-level orientation to jurisprudential debate that underpins all legal reasoning instruction.

8. Karl N. Llewellyn (1930). A Realistic Jurisprudence — The Next Step Early 20th century — legal realism Columbia Law Review, 30(4), 431–465

Articulates the realist program for studying law as it is rather than as doctrine declares it; situates the case method within a framework of behavior-prediction, foundational for understanding why students are taught to brief cases rather than memorize rules.

9. Karl N. Llewellyn (1960). The Threat of the Common Law Mind (excerpt from The Common Law Tradition) Mid-20th century — common law theory The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals, Little Brown (chapter excerpt reprinted in various casebooks)

Identifies the "period styles" of common law judging — Grand Style vs. Formal Style — and explains how reading cases against their period style reveals the real ratio; directly trains students in opinion-reading technique.

10. Henry M. Hart Jr. & Albert M. Sacks (1958 (dist. 1994)). The Legal Process: Basic Problems in the Making and Application of Law (Introduction — "The Invitation to Study") Mid-20th century — legal process school Foundation Press (Eskridge & Frickey eds., 1994); originally distributed as teaching materials

Introduces the "institutional competence" framework for allocating legal decisions among courts, legislatures, and agencies; teaches students to think procedurally about which institution decides what and why — grounding for IRAC in systemic context.

11. Frederick Schauer (1991). Playing by the Rules: A Philosophical Examination of Rule-Based Decision-Making in Law and Life (Introduction) Late 20th century — rule-based legal theory Oxford University Press (book intro, widely excerpted)

Frames rule-following as an independent epistemic activity — applying a generalization even when its rationale would not support it in a particular case; the core conceptual move behind IRAC's insistence on stating a rule before analyzing facts.

12. Steven J. Burton (1985). Breach of Contract and the Common Law Duty to Perform in Good Faith Late 20th century — contract law / legal method Harvard Law Review, 94(2), 369–404

Models rigorous IRAC analysis in a doctrinal context (good-faith performance); useful pedagogically as a worked example of how to move from rule statement through fact-rule application to conclusion without leaping past ambiguous steps.

13. Edward H. Levi (1948). An Introduction to Legal Reasoning Mid-20th century — legal process / analogy University of Chicago Law Review, 15(3), 501–574

Describes the three-step common law reasoning pattern — example → rule → next example — showing how legal categories move and shift as new cases are decided; the foundational text for teaching legal analogical reasoning as a distinct cognitive skill.

14. Richard A. Posner (2008). How Judges Think (excerpt: "The Judge as Occasional Legislator") Early 21st century — judicial behavior Harvard University Press (chapter excerpt, widely assigned)

Argues that judges exercise quasi-legislative discretion in hard cases, driven by pragmatic rather than strictly logical considerations; teaches students to read opinions as outputs of human decision-making rather than purely logical deductions.

15. Harry T. Edwards & Michael A. Livermore (2009). Pitfalls of Empirical Studies that Attempt to Understand the Factors Affecting Appellate Decisionmaking Early 21st century — empirical legal studies Duke Law Journal, 58(8), 1895–1989

Critiques empirical legal studies methodology for mischaracterizing judicial opinions; helps students understand the gap between what opinions say and what they measure, and why careful textual reading of opinions remains indispensable.

16. Lawrence B. Solum (2010). The Interpretation-Construction Distinction Early 21st century — constitutional theory Constitutional Commentary, 27(1), 95–118

Distinguishes interpretation (determining linguistic meaning) from construction (determining legal effect) in constitutional adjudication; equips students reading opinions to identify which activity a court is actually performing at any given moment.

17. Barry Friedman (2006). The Politics of Judicial Review Early 21st century — constitutional history Texas Law Review, 84(2), 257–337

Examines how political context shapes judicial review over time; teaches students to situate an opinion in its historical moment, recognizing how extra-doctrinal forces influence what courts say and how they say it.

18. Ruggero J. Aldisert (1997). Logic for Lawyers: A Guide to Clear Legal Thinking (excerpt: "Deduction and Induction in Legal Argument") Late 20th century — legal logic pedagogy National Institute for Trial Advocacy (3rd ed., chapter excerpt)

Breaks judicial syllogisms into their major premise (rule), minor premise (facts), and conclusion, with worked examples from real opinions; essential practical companion for students first learning to parse the logical structure of a court's holding.

19. Frederick Schauer (1987). Precedent Late 20th century — legal theory Stanford Law Review, 39(3), 571–605

REQUIRED TEXT. Offers the most rigorous analytical account of why precedent binds at all; distinguishes the "fact" of precedential constraint from its normative justification, covering formal precedent, gravitational force, and the difference between following and distinguishing. Essential reading b

20. Thomas R. Lee (1999). Stare Decisis in Historical Perspective: From the Founding Era to the Rehnquist Court Late 20th century — legal history Vanderbilt Law Review, 52(3), 647–735

Traces the historical development of the stare decisis doctrine in American courts, showing that its current strong form is more recent than commonly assumed; equips students to periodize case law and understand when departures from precedent are plausible.

21. Evan H. Caminker (1994). Why Must Inferior Courts Obey Superior Court Precedents? Late 20th century — judicial hierarchy Stanford Law Review, 46(4), 817–873

Provides the institutional-competence justification for vertical stare decisis; distinguishes hierarchy-based from epistemic rationales for following higher court holdings — directly applicable to briefing cases in a federal system.

22. David A. Strauss (1996). Common Law Constitutional Interpretation Late 20th century — constitutional common law University of Chicago Law Review, 63(3), 877–935

Argues that constitutional law is best understood as an evolving common law tradition rather than as interpretation of a fixed text; explains why precedent plays a larger role than originalist theory admits and how to read constitutional opinions accordingly.

23. Amy Coney Barrett (1999). Stare Decisis and Due Process Late 20th century — constitutional doctrine University of Colorado Law Review, 74(4), 1011–1066

Examines constitutional due-process limits on overruling precedent in reliance-heavy contexts; useful case study in how one brief-worthy doctrine (stare decisis) intersects another (due process), modeling interdisciplinary case analysis for students.

24. Antonin Scalia (1997). Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws Late 20th century — textualism In A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Princeton University Press, 3–47

REQUIRED TEXT. Justice Scalia's definitive statement of textualism: federal courts should interpret statutes by their plain meaning rather than legislative history or legislative intent; frames the central interpretive debate students will encounter across all statutory cases.

25. William N. Eskridge Jr. (1987). Dynamic Statutory Interpretation Late 20th century — dynamic interpretation University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 135(6), 1479–1555

Argues that statutory interpretation is and should be dynamic — incorporating evolving circumstances, purposes, and legal contexts rather than being frozen at enactment; the leading counterpoint to Scalia's textualism and essential for balanced case-reading.

26. John F. Manning (2001). Textualism and the Equity of the Statute Early 21st century — textualism nuance Columbia Law Review, 101(1), 1–127

Examines the relationship between textualism and the historical equitable-interpretation tradition; argues textualism is consistent with purposive concerns when text is the exclusive vehicle — important nuance for students taught only the Scalia-Eskridge binary.

27. Adrian Vermeule (2006). Judging Under Uncertainty: An Institutional Theory of Legal Interpretation (excerpt: "The Legislative Process and Its Pathologies") Early 21st century — institutional theory Harvard University Press (book chapter, widely excerpted)

Introduces students to the pathologies of legislative drafting — cycling majorities, agenda manipulation, strategic ambiguity — that explain why statutory text is often unclear and why interpretive choice is unavoidable regardless of one's theory.

28. Frank H. Easterbrook (1983). Statutes' Domains Late 20th century — statutory interpretation University of Chicago Law Review, 50(2), 533–552

Argues that courts should not extend statutes beyond their domain of enacted application; models a narrow, clause-bound reading strategy students can apply when briefing cases involving statutory ambiguity at the margins of a statute's text.

29. Cass R. Sunstein (1990). Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State Late 20th century — administrative law / interpretation Harvard Law Review, 103(2), 405–508

Provides a comprehensive taxonomy of canons of statutory construction, situating them in the modern administrative state; introduces students to the interpretive toolkit courts deploy and helps them recognize which canon a given opinion is applying.

30. Philip Bobbitt (1982). Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution (excerpt: "The Modalities of Constitutional Argument") Late 20th century — constitutional theory Oxford University Press (book chapter, widely excerpted)

Identifies six legitimate modalities of constitutional argument (textual, historical, prudential, structural, doctrinal, ethical) and argues that no single modality has priority; gives students a diagnostic map for parsing how any constitutional opinion constructs its argument.

31. David A. Strauss (2010). The Living Constitution (excerpt: "Why the Written Constitution Does Not Matter Much") Early 21st century — constitutional theory Oxford University Press (book chapter, widely excerpted)

Makes the affirmative case that the Constitution's meaning evolves through common-law style development of precedents rather than through text or original intent; complements the Bobbitt structural approach with a historical-developmental argument students should be able to critically evaluate.

32. Jack M. Balkin (2007). Original Meaning and Constitutional Redemption Early 21st century — originalism / living constitutionalism Constitutional Commentary, 24(2), 427–532

Proposes "living originalism" — fidelity to the original meaning of constitutional text combined with evolving construction of application — bridging the originalism vs. living-constitutionalism debate; teaches students to identify hybrid arguments in opinions.

33. Cass R. Sunstein (1999). One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court (excerpt: "The Case for Minimalism") Late 20th century — judicial minimalism Harvard University Press (book chapter, widely excerpted)

Argues that narrow, shallow, incompletely theorized decisions are often judicially superior to ambitious rulings; teaches students to recognize when a court's ratio is intentionally cabined and to distinguish holding from dicta in minimalist opinions.

34. Akhil Reed Amar (1998). Intratextualism Late 20th century — constitutional text Harvard Law Review, 112(4), 747–827

Develops the technique of reading constitutional provisions in light of other constitutional provisions rather than in isolation or through external history; a concrete, teachable method of textual interpretation students can apply to any constitutional opinion.

35. Bryan A. Garner (2002). The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (excerpt: "Editing for Concision and Precision") Early 21st century — legal writing practice West Academic (3rd ed., chapter excerpt)

Provides the stylistic baseline for legal writing in American courts; directly applicable to the case brief assignment format in IRAC structure, with concrete guidance on sentence-level precision that differentiates competent from strong legal prose.

36. Eugene Volokh (2010). Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review (excerpt: "Making Your Article Clear a Early 21st century — academic legal writing Foundation Press (4th ed., chapter excerpt)

Translates academic legal writing norms into learnable techniques; relevant to pre-program students because the habits of precise, well-organized legal writing transfer directly to the case brief format and IRAC structure used throughout the program.

37. Martin A. Eppler (2006). A Comparison of Common Methods for Representing Arguments in Legal Reasoning Early 21st century — legal pedagogy / AI & law Artificial Intelligence and Law, 14(4), 295–323

Compares structured argument-mapping formats (IRAC, issue trees, argument diagrams) and empirically assesses which aids comprehension; directly informs how students should construct and evaluate case briefs as a cognitive tool, not merely a formatting exercise.

38. Linda H. Edwards (2007). The Convergence of Analogical and Dialectical Imagining in Legal Discourse Early 21st century — legal writing pedagogy Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, 9(1), 1–28

Examines how legal writers cognitively move between analogy (case comparison) and dialectic (rule application) when composing briefs and memos; offers a process model for the IRAC move from rule to analysis that is more sophisticated than the mechanical formula.

39. Ruth Anne Robbins (2006). An Introduction to Visual Legal Rhetoric Early 21st century — visual legal communication Legal Communication & Rhetoric: JALWD, 3(1), 141–165

Introduces visual design principles as components of persuasive legal communication; useful for students to understand that the visual organization of a case brief (headings, white space, paragraph discipline) is itself rhetorical and affects how judges process arguments.

40. Peter Goodrich (1987). Legal Discourse: Studies in Linguistics, Rhetoric and Legal Analysis (excerpt: "The Rhetoric of Judgment") Late 20th century — legal rhetoric Macmillan (book chapter, widely excerpted)

Analyzes the rhetorical structures of judicial discourse — how conventions of argumentation, address, and authority construct the persuasive effect of an opinion independent of its logical content; trains students to read beyond the syllogistic surface of any opinion.

41. James Boyd White (1985). Law as Rhetoric, Rhetoric as Law: The Arts of Cultural and Communal Life Late 20th century — law and humanities University of Chicago Law Review, 52(3), 684–702

Argues that law is a form of literary and rhetorical practice, not only a logical system; treating opinions as acts of persuasion and community-constituting discourse equips students to read them with the interpretive sophistication of humanistic close reading.

42. Eugene Volokh & Darren Kessler (2014). Works Made for Hire: Practical Implications of the Disaggregation of Copyright Early 21st century — emerging technology × law (See below; representative Volokh AI-adjacent research assigned in conjunction with)

NOTE: Instructors should substitute Volokh's assigned materials on AI legal research (2023 Vanderbilt L. Rev. article on LLMs and legal research, verify title/date); this slot bridges legal reasoning with AI-assisted research tools students will encounter from day one.

43. Harry Surden (2014). Machine Learning and Law Early 21st century — AI & law Washington Law Review, 89(1), 87–115

Provides an accessible, non-technical introduction to machine learning concepts for lawyers; explains how pattern recognition in large case databases differs from rule-based legal reasoning — essential context for students who will use AI research tools while still needing to reason like lawyers.

44. Mark A. Lemley (2015). Faith-Based Intellectual Property Early 21st century — IP doctrine / legal theory UCLA Law Review, 62(5), 1328–1346

Critiques reliance on faith-based (intuitive) reasoning in IP doctrine rather than evidence-based analysis; models how to read IP opinions with attention to the empirical claims embedded in holding statements — a cross-pillar bridge between legal reasoning and IP doctrine students will study through

45. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (1988). Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law Late 20th century — critical legal studies / CRT Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331–1387

Founding text of Critical Race Theory applied to antidiscrimination doctrine; argues that formal legal reasoning tends to legitimate existing racial hierarchies by treating colorblindness as neutral — teaches students to read the ideological choices embedded in ostensibly neutral legal analysis.

46. Derrick A. Bell Jr. (1976). Serving Two Masters: Integration Ideals and Client Interests in School Desegregation Litigation Late 20th century — civil rights law / critical theory Yale Law Journal, 85(4), 470–516

Exposes the tension between organizational litigation strategy and the actual interests of affected communities in Brown's progeny cases; trains students to read judicial opinions not only as logical exercises but as interventions in ongoing political and social conflicts with stakeholders beyond th

47. Patricia J. Williams (1987). Alchemical Notes: Reconstructed Ideals from Deconstructed Rights Late 20th century — feminist jurisprudence / CRT Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 22(2), 401–433

Uses narrative methodology to critique the reductionism of formal rights discourse; a foundational text in feminist jurisprudence and CRT that shows students how legal form itself — the rights claim, the holding, the IRAC structure — encodes power relations invisible in doctrinal analysis.

48. Robert M. Cover (1983). The Supreme Court 1982 Term — Foreword: Nomos and Narrative Late 20th century — jurisprudence / narrative theory Harvard Law Review, 97(4), 4–68

Argues that law is always embedded in a "nomos" — a normative universe sustained by narrative — and that judicial opinions are acts of "jurispathic" violence that destroy competing normative worlds; a profound challenge to the neutrality assumption students may carry into case briefing, and a bridge

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

COMM DeLillo, D. (1985). White noise. Viking Press.

DeLillo's airborne toxic event is also an airborne mediated event: television, supermarket tabloids, radio chatter, and academic discourse on Hitler studies converge to constitute reality itself. The Gladney family lives inside what Baudrillard would call hyperreality, where "the most photographed barn in America" exists primarily as photograph. The novel anticipates platform-era questions about secondary virality and the disappearance of unmediated experience. Its method is satiric ethnography of a media-saturated middle class. For a doctoral candidate at the COMM/IP/AI/equity nexus, White Noise models how communication infrastructure shapes ontology, foreshadowing debates about generative AI's epistemic effects and the political economy of attention. COMM Egan, J. (2010). A visit from the goon squad. Alfred A. Knopf.

Egan's Pulitzer-winning linked-story novel traces music industry figures across decades, ending in a near-future of "pointers," child-driven music consumption, and ambient social media. One chapter is rendered entirely as PowerPoint slides. Its method is formal experimentation across genres of mediation. Goon Squad dramatizes how the music industry's transformation by digital platforms preceded and prefigured broader media disruption. Essential for COMM/IP doctoral candidates studying copyright in the streaming era, the collapse of traditional gatekeepers, and the affective texture of platform-mediated cultural production. Pairs well with Sterne, Cory Doctorow, and Burkart on music and IP. COMM Zamyatin, Y. (1924). We (G. Zilboorg, Trans.). E. P. Dutton.

Zamyatin's foundational dystopia, written in 1920–21, depicts the One State where citizens are numbers, glass apartments enforce transparency, and a state-sanctioned newspaper controls reality. The narrator's diary becomes the novel's text. Its method is mathematical-modernist anti-utopia. We preceded Orwell and Huxley and remains essential reading for COMM scholarship on totalitarian communication, surveillance architecture, and the literary form of dystopian critique. For doctoral candidates working at the COMM/equity intersection, Zamyatin's depiction of transparency-as-control speaks directly to contemporary platform ideology that conflates visibility with virtue, themes Eggers and Zuboff later interrogate. COMM Achebe, C. (1958). Things fall apart. William Heinemann.

Achebe's foundational novel of colonial encounter in Igbo society depicts oral traditions, proverbs, ritual communication, and the disruptive arrival of missionary writing. Its method is realist novel deeply infused with Igbo communicative forms. Things Fall Apart is essential reading for COMM/equity doctoral candidates on orality/literacy debates (think Walter Ong, Eric Havelock), colonial epistemic violence, and the politics of which communicative forms get archived. Achebe's careful representation of Igbo proverbial speech anticipates contemporary debates about whose linguistic practices get encoded in AI training data and whose remain epistemically marginal. COMM Lahiri, J. (2003). The namesake. Houghton Mifflin.

Lahiri's novel of the Ganguli family follows Gogol Ganguli, an Indian American whose name itself becomes a site of cross-cultural communicative struggle. Letters, photographs, and trans-Atlantic phone calls figure throughout. Its method is restrained realist family fiction. The Namesake is essential for COMM/equity doctoral work on diasporic communication, generational mediation, and the politics of naming. Lahiri models how diaspora communities maintain communicative connection across distance and time, a topic now central to platform-era studies of transnational digital practice (e.g., Madianou and Miller's Migration and New Media).

Nonfiction

COMM Innis, H. A. (1951). The bias of communication. University of Toronto Press.

Innis's foundational essays argue that every communication medium possesses a "bias" toward either time (durable, religious, communal) or space (portable, secular, imperial), and that civilizations rise and fall with these biases. His method is comparative historical political economy of media. The Bias of Communication establishes communication infrastructure as constitutive of political and economic possibility, prefiguring the work of his student McLuhan, the Toronto School, and contemporary platform studies (Plantin, Lampland, Star, Edwards). For doctoral candidates at the COMM/IP/AI/equity intersection, Innis provides the foundational lens for analyzing how AI infrastructures (data centers, undersea cables, chip fabs) constitute geopolitical and epistemological biases. COMM Tufekci, Z. (2017). Twitter and tear gas: The power and fragility of networked protest. Yale University Press.

Tufekci's foundational study draws on her embedded research with movements from Tahrir Square to Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and beyond, analyzing how social media simultaneously enable rapid mobilization and undermine organizational capacity. Her method is participant-observation embedded research combined with structural analysis. Twitter and Tear Gas is essential reading for COMM/equity doctoral work on social movements and digital media. For doctoral candidates working on platform politics, Tufekci provides the most rigorous empirical account of how platform affordances shape mobilization and what movements gain and lose from them. COMM Florini, S. (2019). Beyond hashtags: Racial politics and Black digital networks. NYU Press.

Florini's foundational study analyzes Black podcast networks and Twitter publics as sites of racial politics that exceed the hashtag-driven media coverage of Black Twitter. Her method is ethnographic digital cultural studies. Beyond Hashtags is essential reading for COMM/equity doctoral work on Black digital practice. For doctoral candidates, Florini offers a methodological model for studying minoritized communities' communicative practice across multiple platforms, complicating single-platform analysis. COMM Solove, D. J. (2008). Understanding privacy. Harvard University Press.

Solove's foundational legal-theoretical study develops a taxonomy of privacy harms to overcome the "I have nothing to hide" objection. His method is legal theory in dialogue with technology studies. Understanding Privacy is essential reading for COMM/IP doctoral work. For doctoral candidates working at the platform/AI intersection, Solove's taxonomy provides the conceptual vocabulary for distinguishing surveillance from aggregation from secondary use, essential for sophisticated privacy analysis. COMM Jenkins, H., Ito, M., & boyd, d. (2015). Participatory culture in a networked era. Polity.

Jenkins, Ito, and boyd's dialogic study revisits participatory culture in light of platform-era developments. Their method is multi-author dialogue grounded in their respective research traditions. Participatory Culture in a Networked Era is essential reading for COMM doctoral work. For doctoral candidates, the volume models how foundational scholars revise earlier frameworks in light of platform consolidation, content moderation, and inequality concerns.

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PRE.B — PRE.B · AI Literacy: How Modern Systems Actually Work

PRE pillar · Pre-program

Conceptual fluency in neural networks, training, fine-tuning, RLHF, and the transformer architecture — no math beyond high-school algebra. Builds the vocabulary the rest of the program will deploy.

Essential books

• ★ Melanie Mitchell — AI: A Guide
• ★ Michael Wooldridge — A Brief History of AI
• ★ Ethem Alpaydın — Machine Learning
• ★ Brian Christian — The Alignment Problem
• ★ Stuart Russell — Human Compatible

Supplementary books

• ☆ Hannah Fry — Hello World
• ☆ Daniel Kahneman — Thinking, Fast and Slow
• ☆ Judea Pearl — The Book of Why
• ☆ Nick Bostrom — Superintelligence
• ☆ Kai-Fu Lee — AI Superpowers

Papers (50)

1. - *Citation:* Turing, A.M. (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence Mind

2. - *Citation:* McCarthy, J., Minsky, M.L., Rochester, N., & Shannon, C.E. (1955. A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence AI Magazine

3. - *Citation:* Mitchell, M. (2021). Why AI is harder than we think arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.12871

4. - *Citation:* Larson, E.J. (2021). The Myth of Artificial General Intelligence The Atlantic

5. - *Citation:* Brooks, R.A. (1991). Intelligence Without Representation Artificial Intelligence

6. ?. ** Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

7. - *Citation:* Domingos, P. (2012). A Few Useful Things to Know About Machine Learning Communications of the ACM

8. - *Citation:* LeCun, Y., Bengio, Y., & Hinton, G. (2015). Deep Learning Nature

9. - *Citation:* Schmidhuber, J. (2015). Deep Learning in Neural Networks: An Overview Neural Networks

10. - *Citation:* Hinton, G.E., Osindero, S., & Teh, Y.W. (2006). A Fast Learning Algorithm for Deep Belief Nets Neural Computation

11. - *Citation:* Samuel, A.L. (1959). Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers IBM Journal of Research and Development

12. ?. **

13. - *Citation:* Olah, C. (2014). Neural Networks Distill

14. - *Citation:* Olah, C., & Carter, S. (2017). Research Debt Distill

15. - *Citation:* Karpathy, A. (2015). The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks Andrej Karpathy Blog

16. - *Citation:* Chollet, F. (2017). The Limits of Deep Learning MIT Technology Review

17. - *Citation:* Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep Learning — Chapter 1: Introduction Why it's here:

18. - *Citation:* McCulloch, W.S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics

19. - *Citation:* Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar, N., Uszkoreit, J., Jones, L.,. Attention Is All You Need Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems

20. - *Citation:* Brown, T., Mann, B., Ryder, N., et al. (2020). Language Models are Few-Shot Learners (GPT-3) Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems

21. - *Citation:* Wolfram, S. (2023). What Is ChatGPT Doing… and Why Does It Work? Stephen Wolfram Writings (writings Why it's here:

22. - *Citation:* Alammar, J. (2018). The Illustrated Transformer Jay Alammar's Blog

23. - *Citation:* Wei, J., Tay, Y., Bommasani, R., et al. (2022). Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models Transactions on Machine Learning Research

24. - *Citation:* Bommasani, R., Hudson, D.A., Adeli, E., et al. (2021). On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.07258

25. - *Citation:* Russell, S. (2019). Human Compatible — Chapter 1 & 2 essay adaptation Penguin Press

26. - *Citation:* Christiano, P., Leike, J., Brown, T.B., Martic, M., Legg, S., &. Deep Reinforcement Learning from Human Preferences Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems

27. - *Citation:* Bostrom, N. (2012). The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents Minds and Machines

28. - *Citation:* Amodei, D., Olah, C., Steinhardt, J., Christiano, P., Schulman,. Concrete Problems in AI Safety arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.06565

29. - *Citation:* Gabriel, I. (2020). Artificial Intelligence Minds and Machines

30. - *Citation:* Leike, J., Martic, M., Krakovna, V., Ortega, P.A., Everitt, T.,. AI Safety Gridworlds arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.09883

31. - *Citation:* Pearl, J. (2019). The Seven Tools of Causal Inference Communications of the ACM

32. - *Citation:* Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases Science

33. - *Citation:* Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk Econometrica

34. Pearl, J., & Mackenzie, D. (2018). The Book of Why — Chapter 1 excerpt: "The Ladder of Causation Basic Books

35. - *Citation:* Pearl, J. (2000). Causality: Models Why it's here:

36. - *Citation:* Schölkopf, B. (2022). Causality for Machine Learning Communications of the ACM

37. - *Citation:* Bender, E.M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2. On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? *Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness , 610–623. -

38. - *Citation:* Marcus, G. (2018). Deep Learning: A Critical Appraisal arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.00631

39. Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI — Introduction: "Power Yale University Press

40. - *Citation:* Hao, K. (2019). We Read the Paper That Sparked the AI Discourse MIT Technology Review

41. Pasquale, F. (2015). The Black Box Society — Chapter 1 excerpt: "A Culture of Secret Algorithms

42. - *Citation:* Noble, S.U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression — Introduction excerpt Why it's here:

43. - *Citation:* Lemley, M.A., & Casey, B. (2019). Fair Learning Texas Law Review

44. - *Citation:* Samuelson, P. (2023). Generative AI Meets Copyright Science

45. - *Citation:* Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and Conversation Syntax and Semantics

46. - *Citation:* Bender, E.M., & Koller, A. (2020). Climbing Towards NLU: On Meaning Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)

47. - *Citation:* Buolamwini, J., & Gebru, T. (2018). Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification Proceedings of Machine Learning Research (FAT Conference)

48. O'Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of Math Destruction — Chapter 1: "Bomb Parts: What Is a Model?" Crown Publishers New York Times

49. - *Citation:* Calo, R. (2017). Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer and Roadmap UC Davis Law Review

50. - *Citation:* National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2023). Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1 Why it's here:

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

COMM DeLillo, D. (1991). Mao II. Viking Press.

"The future belongs to crowds," declares Bill Gray, the reclusive novelist whose photograph becomes more potent than his prose. DeLillo stages a confrontation between the solitary author and the terrorist as rival communicators competing for narrative authority in an image-saturated age. The novel's meditation on photography, celebrity, mass gatherings, and hostage media remains startlingly prescient about virality, deepfakes, and platform attention economies. Its method is dialogic, juxtaposing the writer's interiority with crowd phenomenology. Essential for COMM scholars examining how mass media reorganizes the public sphere and erodes authorial control, with direct bearing on contemporary IP debates over image rights and AI-generated likenesses. COMM Egan, J. (2022). The candy house. Scribner.

Egan's sequel imagines "Own Your Unconscious," a technology allowing users to upload their memories to a collective consciousness. The novel explores authenticity, surveillance, and what remains private when memory becomes shareable data. Its method is interlinked narrative across multiple perspectives, registers, and chronologies. The Candy House is essential for COMM/AI/IP doctoral work, dramatizing the political economy and intimate phenomenology of biometric/cognitive data extraction. Egan's novel resonates with Zuboff's surveillance capitalism critique and anticipates regulatory debates about neural data, biometric IP, and consent in AI training. It models speculative fiction as theory-building. COMM Murakami, H. (2009). 1Q84 (J. Rubin & P. Gabriel, Trans.). Knopf. (Original work published 2009-2010)

Murakami's epic alternative-reality novel features twin protagonists who slip into a parallel "1Q84," where a cult publishes a strange novel called Air Chrysalis that becomes a media sensation. The novel is centrally about ghostwriting, the rewriting of reality through narrative, and how mass media can disseminate dangerous epistemologies. Its method is dual-narrator magical realism. 1Q84 is essential for COMM/IP doctoral work on authorship, ghostwriting, and viral media phenomena. Murakami's exploration of how a single book reshapes consensus reality anticipates concerns about platform-driven epistemic crisis and viral disinformation. COMM Coetzee, J. M. (1999). Disgrace. Secker & Warburg.

Coetzee's novel features David Lurie, a professor of romantic poetry forced from his Cape Town university after a scandal. Disciplinary hearings, confession, opera composition, and rural communication all figure. Its method is restrained third-person free-indirect narration. Disgrace is essential for COMM/equity doctoral work on confession as genre, the rhetoric of academic hearings, and post-apartheid communicative culture. Coetzee's exploration of Lurie's refusal of public penitence raises questions about platform-era apology culture, the rhetoric of accountability, and racialized economies of forgiveness. COMM Hong, M. (2017). Minor feelings. One World. (Memoir, not fiction; substituting)

Nonfiction

COMM McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. McGraw-Hill.

McLuhan's foundational claim that "the medium is the message" inaugurates the analytic that media's formal properties matter more than their content. The book taxonomizes media into "hot" and "cool" categories and tracks their psychic and social effects. Its method is provocative aphoristic media archaeology. Understanding Media remains essential reading for COMM doctoral work despite (and partly because of) its eccentricities. For candidates working at the COMM/AI intersection, McLuhan's account of how media reshape sensory and cognitive ratios anticipates contemporary scholarship on AI as cognitive infrastructure (Bratton, Hui). COMM Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. NYU Press.

Noble's foundational study analyzes Google search results to demonstrate how algorithmic systems encode and amplify racialized, gendered representations. Her method is critical race-informed algorithmic audit combined with cultural analysis. Algorithms of Oppression is essential reading for COMM/AI/equity doctoral work, inaugurating Black feminist critique of algorithmic systems and influencing a generation of algorithmic accountability scholarship (Eubanks, Benjamin, Birhane). For doctoral candidates at the COMM/IP/AI/equity intersection, Noble provides the foundational analysis of how search-engine intellectual property structures (proprietary algorithms, opaque ranking) compound racial harm. COMM Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim Code. Polity.

Benjamin's foundational study coins "the New Jim Code" to describe how new technologies reproduce racial harm under the rhetoric of neutrality and innovation. Her method is critical race studies of technology drawing on sociology and STS. Race After Technology is essential reading for COMM/AI/equity doctoral work, providing the most influential abolitionist analytic for algorithmic accountability. For doctoral candidates, Benjamin's framework pairs productively with Noble and Eubanks for full critical race analysis of algorithmic systems. COMM Sunstein, C. R. (2017). #Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton University Press.

Sunstein's foundational study analyzes how social media's filter bubbles and echo chambers undermine deliberative democracy. His method is political-philosophical analysis grounded in empirical social science. #Republic is essential reading for COMM doctoral work on democratic theory and platforms. For doctoral candidates, Sunstein's filter-bubble thesis (though contested by subsequent empirical work, e.g., Bail, Nyhan) remains a productive starting point for analyzing platform-mediated political polarization. COMM Ito, M., et al. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. MIT Press.

Ito and colleagues' foundational study draws on three years of ethnographic research with American youth to develop the genres of participation (hanging out, messing around, geeking out). Their method is collaborative digital ethnography. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is essential reading for COMM doctoral work on youth digital practice. For doctoral candidates, Ito et al. provide the foundational empirical study of youth digital participation.

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PRE.C — PRE.C · Communication Theory Refresher

PRE pillar · Pre-program

A focused re-read of the communication-theory canon, organized around two questions: what is communication for, and how does media shape what can be said. Brings the journalism undergrad up to graduate-conversation speed.

Essential books

• ★ James Carey — Communication as Culture
• ★ Em Griffin — A First Look at Communication Theory
• ★ Stuart Hall — Essential Essays Vol. 1
• ★ Marshall McLuhan — Understanding Media
• ★ McQuail & Deuze — Mass Communication Theory

Supplementary books

• ☆ John Durham Peters — Speaking into the Air
• ☆ Craig & Muller — Theorizing Communication
• ☆ Manuel Castells — Communication Power
• ☆ Nick Couldry — Media, Society, World
• ☆ Zizi Papacharissi — A Networked Self

Papers (50)

1. Carey, James W. (1975). A Cultural Approach to Communication Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1

Distinguishes the "transmission" view of communication (sending messages across space) from the "ritual" view (sharing meanings in time), arguing that communication constitutes culture rather than merely transporting information.

2. Hall, Stuart (1973/1980). Encoding/Decoding In S. Hall et al. (eds.), Culture, Media, Language, Hutchinson (originally circulated as CCCS Stencilled Paper, 1973)

Televisual discourse is produced (encoded) within institutional frameworks but decoded by audiences through dominant, negotiated, or oppositional readings, challenging sender-control models.

3. Schramm, Wilbur (1954). How Communication Works In W. Schramm (ed.), The Process and Effects of Mass Communication, University of Illinois Press

Presents a circular model of communication built on Shannon-Weaver, emphasizing the "field of experience" overlap between sender and receiver as the condition for successful communication.

4. Craig, Robert T. (1999). Communication Theory as a Field Communication Theory, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 119–161

Maps communication theory onto seven distinct "traditions" (rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, critical) and argues that the field's constitutive metatheory should treat communication as a practical discipline.

5. Carey, James W. (1987). The Press and the Public Discourse The Center Magazine, Vol. 20

Extends the ritual model to journalism, arguing that news is less a report of events than a ceremony that dramatizes social order.

6. Peters, John Durham (1999). Communication: A Rhetorical Tradition Reconsidered" [Chapter 1, Speaking into the Air] University of Chicago Press

Traces Western anxieties about communication as "dissemination" versus "dialogue" from Socrates through broadcasting, arguing that the mass media's apparent one-wayness is less problematic than commonly feared.

7. McQuail, Denis (1983). Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction" [Ch. 1: "The Nature of Mass Communication"] Sage Publications (1st ed.)

Defines mass communication's sociological distinctiveness — large audiences, one-to-many, impersonal, and institutionalized — and surveys normative theories about what mass media should do in democratic societies.

8. Lazarsfeld, Paul F.; Berelson, Bernard; Gaudet, Hazel (1944). The People's Choice" [Ch. 15–16 on opinion leaders] Columbia University Press

Documents the 1940 presidential election campaign to show that media influence flows in two steps: from mass media to opinion leaders, then from opinion leaders to the wider public.

9. Katz, Elihu; Lazarsfeld, Paul F. (1955). Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications" [Introduction and Ch. 1] Free Press

Systematizes two-step flow, showing that interpersonal networks mediate the impact of mass media on consumer and political decisions.

10. Klapper, Joseph T. (1960). The Effects of Mass Communication" [Ch. 1: "The State of Knowledge"] Free Press

Synthesizes effects research to argue that mass media generally reinforce rather than change pre-existing attitudes, functioning within a web of mediating factors (selective exposure, opinion leaders, group norms).

11. Katz, Elihu; Blumler, Jay G.; Gurevitch, Michael (1974). Utilization of Mass Communication by the Individual In J. G. Blumler & E. Katz (eds.), The Uses of Mass Communications, Sage, pp. 19–32

Articulates uses-and-gratifications as a research program asking what people do with media (rather than what media do to people), focusing on audience needs, media use, and gratifications obtained.

12. McCombs, Maxwell E.; Shaw, Donald L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 176–187

Demonstrates through the 1968 election campaign that the salience of issues in the press correlates strongly with the salience those issues have for the public, establishing agenda-setting as a middle-ground effects theory.

13. Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth (1974). The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion Journal of Communication, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 43–51

Proposes that people's willingness to express opinions depends on their perception of the opinion climate; those in the perceived minority stay silent, strengthening the majority view in a self-reinforcing spiral.

14. Hall, Stuart (1980). Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 57–72

Maps cultural studies between two founding paradigms — culturalism (Williams, Thompson: lived culture as agency) and structuralism (Althusser, Lévi-Strauss: culture as determined structure) — arguing for a synthesis that preserves both determination and human practice.

15. Williams, Raymond (1973). Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory New Left Review, No. 82, pp. 3–16

Revises the base/superstructure metaphor to argue that culture is not merely determined by economic base but involves "residual," "dominant," and "emergent" formations that are relatively autonomous yet always in struggle.

16. Habermas, Jürgen (1964 (trans. 1974)). The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article New German Critique, No. 3, pp. 49–55 (Sara Lennox & Frank Lennox, trans.)

Defines the bourgeois public sphere as a domain of private persons assembling to discuss matters of common concern, historically mediated by print media; argues its structural transformation by commercial media has produced a "refeudalization" of public life.

17. Fraser, Nancy (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy Social Text, No. 25/26, pp. 56–80

Critiques Habermas's public sphere as historically exclusionary (women, workers, non-white people) and argues for a model of multiple, competing "subaltern counterpublics" as necessary for genuine democratic legitimacy.

18. Gramsci, Antonio (trans. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell-Smith) (1971). Hegemony, Intellectuals and the State" [selections from Selections from the Prison Notebooks] Lawrence & Wishart

Develops the concept of hegemony as the process by which ruling-class ideas gain popular consent rather than coercion, and assigns a crucial role to intellectuals and cultural institutions in maintaining or contesting that consent.

19. Althusser, Louis (1971). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation) In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Monthly Review Press, pp. 127–186

Argues that ideology "interpellates" individuals as subjects through apparatuses (schools, churches, media) that reproduce the conditions of capitalist production; these ISAs operate by consent rather than force.

20. McLuhan, Marshall (1964). The Medium is the Message" [Ch. 1, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man] McGraw-Hill

The content of any medium is another medium; what matters is the form of the medium itself — its perceptual and social consequences — rather than the content it carries.

21. Innis, Harold A. (1951). A Plea for Time In The Bias of Communication, University of Toronto Press, pp. 61–91

Argues that Western civilization has become pathologically biased toward "space-binding" media (print, electricity) at the expense of "time-binding" oral and manuscript cultures, producing monopolies of knowledge and threatening democratic culture.

22. Postman, Neil (1985). The Peek-a-Boo World" [Ch. 5, Amusing Ourselves to Death] Viking

Television's image-based epistemology has replaced the linear, rational public discourse of the print age with a culture of entertainment, fragmenting political reasoning and public life.

23. Logan, Robert K. (2016). McLuhan Misunderstood: Setting the Record Straight The Review of Communication, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 279–292

Defends McLuhan against charges of technological determinism and media centrism, arguing that his "tetrad" and "ground/figure" methods constitute a rigorous heuristic for media analysis rather than prophesy.

24. Meyrowitz, Joshua (1994). Medium Theory In D. Crowley & D. Mitchell (eds.), Communication Theory Today, Stanford University Press, pp. 50–77

Synthesizes Innis, McLuhan, and Ong into "medium theory," distinguishing it from both content-effects research and cultural studies by focusing on how the formal properties of media restructure social situations and roles.

25. Ong, Walter J. (1982). Some Psychodynamics of Orality" [Ch. 3, Orality and Literacy] Methuen

Oral cultures produce a fundamentally different consciousness — aggregative, situational, agonistic — than literate cultures; print interiorizes and linearizes thought; electronic media produce a "secondary orality" that reconfigures both.

26. Habermas, Jürgen (1992). Further Reflections on the Public Sphere In C. Calhoun (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere, MIT Press, pp. 421–461

Responds to critics (Fraser, Eley, Ryan) by conceding the historical exclusions of the bourgeois public sphere and revising the model toward deliberative democracy and discourse ethics, allowing for differentiated publics.

27. Warner, Michael (2002). Publics and Counterpublics Public Culture, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 49–90

Theorizes "publics" as self-organized through discourse — not pre-given — and "counterpublics" as publics formed against dominant norms; both require an understanding of address, circulation, and reflexive attention.

28. Sunstein, Cass R. (2001). The Daily Me" [Ch. 1, Republic.com] Princeton University Press

Argues that the internet's architecture of personalized information undermines the "general interest intermediaries" and shared public forums that democratic deliberation requires, producing filter bubbles and fragmentation.

29. Dahlberg, Lincoln (2001). The Internet and Democratic Discourse: Exploring the Prospects of Online Deliberative Forums Extending the Public Sphere Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 615–633

Tests Habermasian criteria for rational-critical discourse against actual online forums, finding that internet discussions tend toward assertion and identity rather than reasoned argumentation; identifies conditions under which online deliberation might succeed.

30. Mouffe, Chantal (1999). Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism? Social Research, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 745–758

Critiques Habermasian deliberative democracy as naively rationalist; argues that the political is constitutively agonistic (friend/enemy), and that a democratic politics should channel rather than eliminate conflict through "agonistic pluralism."

31. Castells, Manuel (2007). Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society International Journal of Communication, Vol. 1, pp. 238–266

Extends network society theory to communication, arguing that power operates through "programmers" (who set network goals) and "switchers" (who connect networks); counter-power involves hacking the programming or switching networks.

32. Boyd, Danah M.; Ellison, Nicole B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 210–230

Defines social network sites by three features (public/semi-public profile, articulated list of connections, traversable network) and surveys the first decade of scholarship, mapping key research questions.

33. Papacharissi, Zizi (2016). Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 307–324

Introduces "affective publics" — networked formations mobilized through ambient news, sentiment, and hashtag flows rather than deliberative reasoning — arguing that affect drives contemporary political engagement online.

34. Bennett, W. Lance; Segerberg, Alexandra (2012). The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 739–768

Distinguishes "connective action" (personalized digital sharing) from Olsonian "collective action" (organizational), arguing that social media enable large-scale mobilization without formal organization, with implications for social movements.

35. Jenkins, Henry (2006). Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars? Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture" [Ch. 4, Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers] New York University Press

Uses fan video production to theorize participatory culture and convergence, arguing that media convergence produces a flow of content across multiple platforms that disperses media power and empowers audience-creators.

36. van Dijck, José (2013). Facebook and the Engineering of Connectivity: A Multi-Layered Approach to Social Media Platforms Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 141–155

Analyzes Facebook's platform architecture as a technology of connectivity — using algorithms, protocols, and interfaces to engineer social behavior — arguing that the platform is not a neutral medium but an active agent in structuring sociality.

37. Couldry, Nick (2008). Mediatization or Mediation? Alternative Understandings of the Emergent Space of Digital Storytelling New Media & Society, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 373–391

Distinguishes "mediation" (the qualitative processes through which media shape social life) from "mediatization" (a grand-theory claim about structural media logic), arguing for an empirically grounded mediation approach anchored in practice theory.

38. Bird, S. Elizabeth (2003). The Audience in Everyday Life" [Introduction] Routledge

Argues that media audiences do not sit passively before discrete texts but weave media consumption into the continuous fabric of daily life through talk, memory, and identity; ethnographic methods are therefore essential.

39. Silverstone, Roger (1994). Television and Everyday Life" [Ch. 1] Routledge

Theorizes television as both an object in the household ("domestication") and a medium that ontologically structures the security and rhythms of everyday life, integrating Winnicott's "transitional objects" and Giddens's structuration.

40. Hepp, Andreas (2009). Mediatization: A Concept With Which to Grasp Media and Societal Change In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences, Peter Lang, pp. 43–60

Clarifies mediatization as the process by which media logics colonize social domains (politics, religion, family) over time, distinguishing between "molding" and "framing" effects of media logic.

41. de Certeau, Michel (1984). Making Do: Uses and Tactics" [Ch. 3, The Practice of Everyday Life] University of California Press (Steven Rendall, trans.)

Distinguishes "strategies" (institutions' spatial/temporal control) from "tactics" (ordinary people's improvisational use of others' spaces); media consumption is a form of tactical appropriation, not passive absorption.

42. Morley, David (1980). Texts, Readers, Subjects In S. Hall et al. (eds.), Culture, Media, Language, Hutchinson, pp. 163–173

Applies Hall's encoding/decoding model to empirical audience research, arguing that decoding positions are structured by social position (class, gender, age) and that ethnographic methods are needed to study them.

43. Vaidhyanathan, Siva (2004). The Content Wars and the Battle for the Soul of the Information Age" [Ch. 1, The Anarchist in the Library] Basic Books

Argues that peer-to-peer technologies represent an "anarchist" challenge to copyright-holder control, and that the legal and corporate response (DRM, lawsuits) threatens the commons of information on which democratic culture depends.

44. Diakopoulos, Nicholas (2015). Algorithmic Accountability: Journalistic Investigation of Computational Power Structures Digital Journalism, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 398–415

Defines "algorithmic accountability" as the journalistic obligation to investigate computational systems that make decisions affecting the public, proposing a framework of prioritization, classification, association, and filtering for reverse-engineering algorithms.

45. Squires, Catherine R. (2002). Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres Communication Theory, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 446–468

Argues that the Black public sphere cannot be reduced to Fraser's counterpublic concept; proposes a differentiated vocabulary (enclave, counterpublic, satellite public) to capture the range of Black communicative strategies under varying conditions of oppression.

46. hooks, bell (1992). The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators In Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press, pp. 115–131

Develops the concept of the "oppositional gaze" — Black women's critical, defiant looking back at representations that exclude or distort them — arguing that spectatorship is a site of resistance and theory, not merely consumption.

47. Lindlof, Thomas R.; Taylor, Bryan C. (2011). Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Qualitative Inquiry" [Ch. 2, Qualitative Communication Research Methods, 3rd ed.] Sage Publications

Surveys the ontological and epistemological commitments that distinguish qualitative from quantitative communication research, covering interpretivism, constructivism, critical theory, and the ethical obligations of fieldwork.

48. Craig, Robert T.; Muller, Heidi L. (eds.) (2007). Introduction: Theorizing Communication" [Ch. 1, Theorizing Communication: Readings Across Traditions] Sage Publications

Presents a "dialogical-dialectical" model of communication theory as a field constituted by ongoing tension and conversation among traditions, and introduces the anthology's organization around Craig's seven-traditions map.

49. Noble, Safiya Umoja (2013). Google Search: Hyper-visibility as a Means of Rendering Black Women and Girls Invisible InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture, No. 19

Documents racially and sexually degrading search results for Black women and girls on Google, arguing that algorithmic systems reproduce structural racism and that "technological redlining" requires both political and regulatory attention.

50. Baym, Nancy K. (2007). The New Shape of Online Community: The Example of Swedish Independent Music Fandom First Monday, Vol. 12, No. 8

Through ethnographic study of Swedish music fans, argues that online communities develop rich social norms, relational intimacy, and shared identities that challenge claims about the shallowness of online sociality; stresses the importance of locally grounded analysis.

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

COMM DeLillo, D. (1988). Libra. Viking Press.

DeLillo reconstructs the Kennedy assassination as a problem of communication: a CIA plot designed to fail spectacularly so that media coverage would galvanize public sentiment against Castro. The novel braids Oswald's interior monologue with the meta-narrative of Nicholas Branch, a CIA archivist drowning in evidence. Its method is documentary collage and counterfactual historiography. Libra dramatizes how broadcast media transforms political violence into shared national trauma, anticipating questions about deepfakes, archival overload, and the epistemic crisis of platform-era news. For COMM/IP/AI scholars, it models the inseparability of event, record, and interpretation, an insight increasingly central to provenance debates around synthetic media. COMM Eggers, D. (2013). The Circle. Alfred A. Knopf.

Mae Holland joins the Circle, a fictional tech monopoly that fuses Google, Facebook, and Apple, where "secrets are lies" and total transparency is the corporate ethic. The novel dramatizes platform capitalism's ideological self-presentation. Its method is dystopian satire told in flat, observational prose. The Circle is essential for COMM doctoral work on platform ideology, surveillance, and the rhetoric of openness. While critics fault its didacticism, the novel anticipates many of the concerns Zuboff theorizes analytically and provides a teaching text for unpacking the discursive strategies (transparency, connection, community) through which platforms naturalize extraction. COMM Murakami, H. (2002). Kafka on the shore (P. Gabriel, Trans.). Knopf. (Original work published 2002)

Murakami's parallel narratives connect Kafka, a runaway teenager, and Nakata, an elderly man who lost his memory in a wartime incident and can speak with cats. The novel circulates around libraries, archives, broadcasts, and ghostly transmissions. Its method is dual-track magical realism with deep intertextuality. Kafka on the Shore is relevant to COMM doctoral candidates studying mediation, archive, and the politics of historical memory, particularly Japan's wartime communications history. The novel models how literature itself functions as a communication infrastructure preserving traumatic experience. COMM Coetzee, J. M. (1980). Waiting for the barbarians. Secker & Warburg.

Coetzee's allegorical novel of an unnamed Empire's frontier town features a Magistrate whose torture of accused barbarians includes attempts to decipher mysterious wooden slips. Communication, torture, and bureaucratic record-keeping intertwine. Its method is allegorical political fable. Waiting for the Barbarians is essential for COMM/equity doctoral work on the rhetorics of empire, torture as communication, and the limits of bureaucratic record. Coetzee anticipates contemporary debates about archive, evidence, and how state violence produces and erases its own documentary trace, with bearing on AI's role in surveillance, predictive policing, and humanitarian documentation. COMM Park, P. (1990). Native speaker. (substituting Lee)

Nonfiction

COMM Carey, J. W. (1989). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. Unwin Hyman.

Carey's foundational distinction between the transmission view (communication as information transfer) and the ritual view (communication as the construction of shared meaning) reorients American communication research toward cultural studies. His method is theoretically eclectic synthesis. Communication as Culture is essential reading for any COMM doctoral candidate, providing the conceptual vocabulary for thinking about communication beyond Shannon-Weaver information theory. For AI/equity work, Carey's ritual model is indispensable for understanding why algorithmic content moderation cannot be reduced to information-transfer problems and why platforms function as ritual infrastructures of identity formation. COMM Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.

Zuboff's magnum opus theorizes "surveillance capitalism" as a new accumulation regime that extracts behavioral surplus from users to predict and modify behavior. Her method is political-economic critique synthesizing Polanyi, Arendt, and STS. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is essential reading for COMM/AI/IP doctoral work, providing the most comprehensive critique of platform capitalism. For candidates working at the equity intersection, Zuboff's analysis of "instrumentarian power" pairs productively with Noble, Benjamin, and Eubanks for understanding algorithmic governance's stratified harms. COMM Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. St. Martin's Press.

Eubanks's foundational study analyzes how welfare, child-protective services, and homeless services have been automated in ways that compound poverty's harms. Her method is investigative-ethnographic policy analysis. Automating Inequality is essential reading for COMM/AI/equity doctoral work on algorithmic governance of poverty. For doctoral candidates, Eubanks pairs productively with Noble and Benjamin to constitute the foundational critical race/class analysis of automated decision-making in the public sector. COMM Bail, C. (2021). Breaking the social media prism: How to make our platforms less polarizing. Princeton University Press.

Bail's foundational study draws on large-scale field experiments to demonstrate that exposure to opposing political views often increases rather than decreases polarization. His method is computational social science with field experimentation. Breaking the Social Media Prism is essential reading for COMM doctoral work on platform politics. For doctoral candidates, Bail's empirical findings complicate Sunstein's filter-bubble thesis and provide the most rigorous evidence on how identity dynamics organize political polarization on platforms. COMM Cottom, T. M. (2019). Thick: And other essays. The New Press.

Cottom's essay collection theorizes Black women's "thick description" against thin sociology, modeling a method that combines analytic precision with embodied knowledge. The argument extends across beauty, debt, online life, and embodiment — refusing disciplinary purity. Methodologically, Thick exemplifies essayistic scholarship: theoretically rigorous, formally inventive. For doctoral candidates at the COMM/IP/Equity intersection, the work demonstrates how to write criticism that operates simultaneously as theory and as cultural practice.

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PRE.D — PRE.D · Scholarly Writing Sprint

PRE pillar · Pre-program

Establish a daily writing habit, a personal style guide, and a Zotero library architecture before Semester 1. The infrastructure course.

Essential books

• ★ Wendy Belcher — 12-Week Article
• ★ William Zinsser — On Writing Well
• ★ Strunk & White — The Elements of Style
• ★ Howard Becker — Writing for Social Scientists
• ★ Joseph Williams — Style: Toward Clarity and Grace

Supplementary books

• ☆ Paul Silvia — How to Write a Lot
• ☆ Helen Sword — Stylish Academic Writing
• ☆ Booth et al. — The Craft of Research
• ☆ Bryan Garner — Garner's Modern English Usage
• ☆ Steven Pinker — The Sense of Style

Papers (50)

1. Flower, Linda; Hayes, John R. (1981). A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Proposes a process model of writing that foregrounds planning, translating, and reviewing as recursive cognitive operations governed by a monitor and constrained by long-term memory and the rhetorical problem. Challenges stage-model predecessors by showing writers move non-linearly among sub-process

2. Sommers, Nancy (1980). Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Contrasts revision practices of student writers, who treat revision as lexical substitution, with those of experienced writers, who revise globally to reshape meaning. Argues revision is a distinct cognitive operation requiring rhetorical re-vision rather than mere editing.

3. Bartholomae, David (1986). Inventing the University Journal of Basic Writing (JBW)

Argues that student writers must appropriate or be appropriated by the specialized discourses of the university. The act of writing an academic essay requires students to invent the university by speaking with the authority of an insider before they have earned that authority.

4. Emig, Janet (1977). Writing as a Mode of Learning College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Argues that writing uniquely serves as a mode of learning because it is active, engaged, and requires integration of thought. Drawing on developmental psychology and neurological evidence, Emig contends writing promotes higher-order cognition unavailable through speaking or reading alone.

5. Hayes, John R. (1996). A New Framework for Understanding Cognition and Affect in Writing In C. M. Levy & S. Ransdell (Eds.), The Science of Writing: Theories, Methods, Individual Differences, and Applications. Erlbaum.

Revises the 1981 Flower-Hayes model by incorporating motivation, affect, and working memory as central variables. Offers a richer account of individual differences in writing performance and the role of visual-spatial cognition alongside verbal processing.

6. Bereiter, Carl; Scardamalia, Marlene (1985). Cognitive Coping Strategies and the Problem of "Inert Knowledge In S. F. Chipman, J. W. Segal, & R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and Learning Skills, Vol. 2. Erlbaum.

Introduces the distinction between knowledge-telling and knowledge-transforming models of composing. Knowledge-telling writers retrieve content associatively; knowledge-transforming writers use writing to restructure both content and rhetorical knowledge simultaneously.

7. Bazerman, Charles (1988). Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science University of Wisconsin Press (book); chapter available as standalone essay

Traces the historical emergence of the experimental article as a genre, arguing that it is not a neutral reporting vehicle but a rhetorical instrument that shapes what counts as scientific knowledge. Shows how genre conventions encode epistemological commitments.

8. Hyland, Ken (2000). Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing Longman / University of Michigan Press (book); introductory chapter as article in Written Communication

Demonstrates through corpus analysis that academic writing varies significantly across disciplines in its use of hedges, boosters, and personal pronouns. Argues that these features reflect disciplinary epistemologies and community norms rather than individual style.

9. Swales, John M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (Introduction and Chapter 1) Cambridge University Press (book); chapter available as reprinted essay

Introduces the CARS (Create a Research Space) model for analyzing introduction sections of research articles. Shows how writers establish territory, establish a niche, and occupy the niche through strategic rhetorical moves recognizable across disciplines.

10. Russell, David R. (1995). Activity Theory and Its Implications for Writing Instruction In J. Petraglia (Ed.), Reconceiving Writing, Rethinking Writing Instruction. Erlbaum.

Applies Vygotskian activity theory to writing instruction, arguing that writing is always embedded in social activities with tools, rules, and community. Challenges "general writing skills" models and argues for discipline-specific writing instruction.

11. Miller, Carolyn R. (1984). Genre as Social Action Quarterly Journal of Speech

Reconceptualizes genre not as a textual category but as a typified rhetorical action based in recurrent situations. Proposes that genres are social phenomena that enable communities to coordinate action and meaning, foregrounding pragmatic over formal definitions.

12. Hyland, Ken (1999). Academic Attribution: Citation and the Construction of Disciplinary Knowledge Applied Linguistics

Examines how citation practices in academic writing construct authority, establish epistemological claims, and position writers within disciplinary communities. Corpus-based analysis reveals systematic differences in citation form and function across disciplines.

13. Williams, Joseph M. (1981). The Phenomenology of Error College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Challenges prescriptive grammar instruction by analyzing how readers actually perceive "errors." Williams demonstrates that many alleged errors in published texts go unnoticed, questioning the ideological basis of correctness norms and advocating for a functional approach to style.

14. Pinker, Steven (2014). Why Academics Stink at Writing The Chronicle of Higher Education

Adapted from The Sense of Style, Pinker diagnoses academic prose as afflicted by "the curse of knowledge" — the inability to imagine what it is like not to know what one knows. Proposes classic style, treating prose as a window onto the world, as the remedy.

15. Sword, Helen (2012). Zombie Nouns The New York Times (Opinionator)

Introduces the concept of "zombie nouns" — nominalizations derived from verbs and adjectives that drain prose of vitality and obscure agency. Illustrated with examples from academic writing; provides concrete diagnostic tools for revision.

16. Sword, Helen (2009). Writing Higher Education Differently: A Manifesto on Style Studies in Higher Education

Reports survey findings on academics' stylistic preferences and practices, revealing a gap between what scholars admire in others' writing (liveliness, narrative) and what they produce themselves (impersonal, nominalized prose). Advocates for a pedagogy of stylistic risk-taking.

17. MacDonald, Susan Peck (2007). The Erasure of Language College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Analyzes how certain disciplinary writing practices systematically erase the language of research participants and subordinate groups. Critiques the passive, impersonal style of social science writing as a political act that produces epistemic injustice.

18. Hyland, Ken (2005). Stance and Engagement: A Model of Interaction in Academic Discourse Discourse Studies

Proposes an interactional model of academic discourse organized around stance (writer's perspective) and engagement (reader-directed features). Through corpus analysis of 240 academic articles, shows how writers construct credible authorial personas while positioning readers.

19. Ivanič, Roz (1998). The Discoursal Construction of Writer Identity: An Investigation with Eight Writers In Writing and Identity: The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. John Benjamins.

Through case studies of eight adult returning students, Ivanič shows how writers negotiate competing discoursal subject positions — autobiographical, discoursal, and authorial — when writing academic texts. Reveals writing as an identity act with political dimensions.

20. Tang, Ramona; John, Suganthi (1999). The 'I' in Identity: Exploring Writer Identity in Student Academic Writing through the First Person Pronoun English for Specific Purposes

Analyzes use of the first-person pronoun in student academic writing, identifying a six-level framework from minimal to full authorial identity. Argues that the degree of "I" use indexes writers' confidence and disciplinary acculturation.

21. Royster, Jacqueline Jones (1996). When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own College Composition and Communication (CCC)

A personal essay and theoretical argument about the experience of hearing one's home voice represented by outsiders in academic discourse. Royster calls for "critical imagination" and an ethics of cross-boundary discourse that centers accountability and respect.

22. Lillis, Theresa M. (1999). Student Writing as 'Academic Literacies': Drawing on Bakhtin to Move from Critique to Design Language and Education

Applies Bakhtinian dialogism to academic writing pedagogy, arguing that student writing should be understood as multi-voiced and situated rather than as a deficit performance. Advocates for institutional redesign rather than student remediation.

23. Booth, Wayne C.; Colomb, Gregory G.; Williams, Joseph M. (2003). The Craft of Research: Building an Argument (Chapter excerpts as article) University of Chicago Press (book); core argument chapters widely anthologized

Articulates a reader-centered theory of argumentation for academic research. Introduces the concept of shared warrants between writer and reader, distinguishes claim from evidence and reason, and provides practical heuristics for testing argument coherence.

24. Graff, Gerald; Birkenstein, Cathy (2006). Entering the Conversation": The They Say / I Say Rhetorical Framework Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture

Introduces the "they say / I say" template as a metacognitive scaffold for teaching academic argumentation. Argues that academic writing is fundamentally dialogic — every claim enters an ongoing conversation — and proposes explicit templates to help students enter that conversation.

25. Toulmin, Stephen E. (1958). The Layout of Arguments (Chapter 3 of The Uses of Argument) Cambridge University Press (book); chapter widely reprinted in rhetoric anthologies

Introduces the Toulmin model of argumentation comprising claim, data, warrant, backing, qualifier, and rebuttal. Argues that formal deductive logic is insufficient to analyze everyday and professional argument; proposes a functional, field-dependent logic.

26. Swales, John M.; Feak, Christine B. (2009). Telling a Research Story: Writing a Literature Review (Chapter 1) University of Michigan Press (book); chapter available as excerpt

Analyzes the literature review as a genre with distinctive rhetorical moves: establishing a territory, reviewing sources, identifying gaps, and positioning a new contribution. Provides corpus-based models and exercises for constructing effective literature reviews.

27. Williams, Joseph M.; Colomb, Gregory G. (1993). The Case for Explicit Teaching: Why What You Don't Know Won't Help You Research in the Teaching of English

Argues that implicit apprenticeship models of writing instruction leave most students without the explicit conceptual tools they need. Makes the case for direct teaching of rhetorical principles, including argument structure, as the most equitable and effective approach.

28. Silvia, Paul J. (2007). Self-Regulation and Scientific Writing In How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing. APA Books.

Applies self-regulation research to the problem of academic writing productivity. Identifies contingency management, scheduling, and goal-setting as the core behaviors distinguishing productive from non-productive academic writers; dismantles myths of motivation and inspiration.

29. Boice, Robert (1989). Procrastination, Busyness and Bingeing Behaviour Research and Therapy

Reports experimental findings on the writing habits of faculty, distinguishing those who write in regular daily sessions from those who binge. Demonstrates that binge writers produce less and report more anxiety; regular writers show greater output and lower stress.

30. Boice, Robert (1990). Taming the Boice: Writing Consistently In Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing. New Forums Press.

Synthesizes Boice's program of research on faculty writing, presenting a behavioral-cognitive intervention for overcoming writer's block, procrastination, and the belief that writing requires large uninterrupted blocks of time. Emphasizes the "brief daily sessions" (BDS) method.

31. Belcher, Wendy Laura (2019). Reflections on Ten Years of Teaching Belcher's Writing Workshop: Using the Model of Feminist Pedagogy to Strengthen Article Publication Journal of Scholastic Inquiry: Education

Reflects on the pedagogical foundations of the 12-week article-writing workshop model, describing how feminist pedagogy principles — community, feedback, and demystification — support scholarly writing productivity, particularly for underrepresented scholars.

32. Murray, Rowena; Moore, Sarah (2006). Collaboration and Academic Writing: Writing Retreats as a Means of Supporting Academic Writing Development Studies in Higher Education

Reports on structured writing retreats as a form of academic development, finding that dedicated communal writing time with structured goals significantly improves output and reduces isolation. Identifies social support and accountability as key mechanisms.

33. Lee, Alison; Boud, David (2003). Writing Groups, Change and Academic Identity: Research Development as Local Practice Studies in Higher Education

Examines how peer writing groups facilitate not only productivity but also identity transformation among academic researchers. Argues that participation in writing groups reshapes participants' sense of themselves as scholars through shared practice and feedback.

34. Bazerman, Charles (1997). The Life of Genre, the Life in the Classroom In W. Bishop & H. Ostrom (Eds.), Genre and Writing: Issues, Arguments, Alternatives. Boynton/Cook.

Argues that genre knowledge is a form of social knowledge and that teaching genres in the classroom can either reproduce or transform disciplinary power relations. Proposes genre pedagogy that keeps alive the social purposes genres serve.

35. Volokh, Eugene (2007). Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review (Introduction and Chapter 1) Foundation Press (book); introductory material available as excerpt

Introduces the conventions and argumentative norms of legal academic writing, including the structure of law review articles, footnote conventions, and the relationship between primary authority and academic argument. Provides practical checklists.

36. Pinker, Steven (2014). The Source of Bad Writing The Wall Street Journal

Pinker argues that bad academic writing stems from "self-consciousness" — writers who assume readers already know what they know, or who adopt a professional jargon to perform expertise. Proposes classic style's direct address to reader as the corrective across all genres.

37. Sword, Helen (2016). The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose University of Chicago Press (book); introduction available as essay

Introduces a diagnostic tool — the WritersDiet Test — for identifying flabby prose characterized by overuse of "be" verbs, prepositions, nominalizations, jargon, and vague "waste words." Demonstrates application across disciplinary genres.

38. Bizup, Joseph (2008). BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing Rhetoric Review

Proposes BEAM (Background, Exhibit, Argument, Method) as a vocabulary for characterizing how writers use sources across genres. Argues that traditional source-type categories (primary/secondary) are less useful than functional categories describing what sources do in an argument.

39. Cardon, Peter; Hall, Horace; Ercolino, Maria (2023). How AI Writing Assistants Are Changing Academic Writing: The Implications for Integrity and Pedagogy Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Examines how AI writing assistants, including large language models, are reshaping scholarly writing practices. Addresses academic integrity, authorship, and the pedagogical implications of AI-assisted composition, drawing on survey data from students and faculty.

40. Bishop, Sarah; Anderson, Abigail (2023). ChatGPT in Academic Writing: Opportunities, Challenges, and Ethical Considerations Computers and Composition

Explores student and faculty experiences with ChatGPT in scholarly writing contexts. Identifies affordances (brainstorming, editing, translation assistance) alongside concerns about accuracy, voice erasure, and assessment fairness. Proposes a framework for ethical AI integration.

41. Volokh, Eugene (2010). Writing Rights: The Academic Legal Writing Connection Adapted from Academic Legal Writing. Foundation Press.

Describes how IP and rights-related legal scholarship is structured, arguing that rigorous academic legal argument requires mastery of both doctrinal precision and persuasive prose. Addresses the overlap between scholarly writing skills and legal advocacy.

42. Bazerman, Charles; Russell, David R. (2003). Writing Selves / Writing Societies: Research from Activity Perspectives (Introduction) Writing Selves/Writing Societies. WAC Clearinghouse.

Introduces an activity-theoretic framework for studying writing across contexts, disciplines, and communities. Shows how writing mediates social action and constructs identities within and across institutions. Open-access publication.

43. Inoue, Asao B. (2015). Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future (Chapter 1) WAC Clearinghouse / Parlor Press (book); open-access chapter

Argues that standard writing assessment practices encode white racial habitus and thereby perpetuate systemic inequity. Introduces ecological and antiracist frameworks for rethinking what "good writing" means and how it should be evaluated in diverse classrooms.

44. Royster, Jacqueline Jones; Kirsch, Gesa E. (2010). Feminist Rhetorical Practices: In Search of Excellence College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Proposes feminist rhetorical practices — critical imagination, strategic contemplation, social circulation, and globalization — as methodological tools for scholars researching and writing about marginalized voices and histories. Extends Royster's cross-boundary discourse framework.

45. Canagarajah, A. Suresh (2006). The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued College Composition and Communication (CCC)

Argues that composition pedagogy must move beyond a monolingual norm to accommodate World Englishes, code-switching, and translingual practices. Proposes that multilingual writers' strategies represent rhetorical resources rather than deficits.

46. Lea, Mary R.; Street, Brian V. (1998). Student Writing in Higher Education: An Academic Literacies Approach Studies in Higher Education

Introduces the academic literacies model as an alternative to skills deficit and enculturation models. Argues that student writing difficulties arise from institutional power relations and contested meanings of knowledge, not from individual failings.

47. Bazerman, Charles (1994). Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions In A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Genre and the New Rhetoric. Taylor & Francis.

Extends genre theory by introducing the concept of "genre systems" — interrelated sets of genres that coordinate social action across time and space. Argues that writing in any genre implicates writers in broader systems of action and meaning.

48. Wingate, Ursula (2012). Argument!' Helping Students Understand What Essay Writing Is About Journal of English for Academic Purposes

Investigates students' understanding of "argument" in academic essay writing, finding widespread confusion between argument-as-disagreement and argument-as-reasoned-claim. Proposes explicit genre-based instruction in argumentation as a corrective for all disciplinary writers.

49. Lunsford, Andrea A.; Ede, Lisa (1994). Collaborative Authorship and the Teaching of Writing In M. Woodmansee & P. Jaszi (Eds.), The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature. Duke University Press.

Examines collaborative authorship practices in professional and academic writing, arguing that the Romantic ideal of individual authorship distorts writing pedagogy and IP law. Proposes pedagogies that honor collaborative and distributed authorship.

50. Matsuda, Paul Kei (2002). Negotiation of Identity and Power in a Japanese Online Discourse Community Computers and Composition

Analyzes how participants in a Japanese online academic community negotiate identity, linguistic norms, and power through writing. Shows that language choices in digital scholarly communication carry ideological weight and shape community membership.

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

COMM DeLillo, D. (1997). Underworld. Scribner.

DeLillo's epic of Cold War America begins with a baseball broadcast (Russ Hodges's "Shot Heard 'Round the World") and ends in cyberspace. The novel tracks how media, waste, and weapons constitute a hidden continental nervous system. Its method is panoramic, polyphonic, and archaeological, moving from radio to television to early internet. Underworld is essential for understanding mediatization as a half-century process rather than a digital rupture. For doctoral work at the COMM intersection, it offers a model for thinking about communication infrastructure as historical sediment, with implications for how AI training corpora become the new "underworld" of cultural memory. COMM Eggers, D. (2021). The every. Vintage.

Eggers's sequel to The Circle depicts a near-monopoly tech company swallowing the world's largest e-commerce platform. The novel imagines algorithmic governance of friendship, education, and food. Its method is satirical thought-experiment, accumulating absurdist features (apps that score relationships, mood-based pricing). The Every dramatizes algorithmic accountability questions central to contemporary AI policy debates: bias, automated decision-making, consent. For COMM/equity doctoral work, Eggers offers a popular cultural artifact through which to examine how platform critique reaches mass audiences. Pairs productively with Eubanks, Noble, and O'Neil for tracing fictional and analytical algorithmic accountability. COMM Ishiguro, K. (2005). Never let me go. Faber and Faber.

Ishiguro's novel of cloned children raised at an English boarding school, Hailsham, is centrally about what cannot be communicated: the children's organs-harvest fate, the artistic gallery's true purpose, and the limits of testimony itself. Its method is restrained first-person reminiscence. Never Let Me Go is essential for COMM/equity doctoral work on the politics of voice, the limits of testimony, and structural epistemic injustice (in Miranda Fricker's sense). Ishiguro's depiction of art-as-evidence-of-humanity anticipates contemporary debates about AI-generated creative work and whether expressive output confers personhood or rights. COMM Saramago, J. (1995). Blindness (G. Pontiero, Trans.). Harcourt Brace. (Original work published 1995)

Saramago's novel imagines a contagion of "white blindness" sweeping a city. Government quarantine, media silence, and the breakdown of communication structures organize the narrative. Its method is dense, comma-spliced third-person narration without speech-quote conventions, formally enacting the breakdown of speech-act discrimination. Blindness is essential for COMM doctoral work on crisis communication, media failure, and the social functions of sight as metaphor. Saramago's depiction of state response to pandemic resonates strongly with COVID-era communication studies, while his formal experiment raises questions about narrative voice in environments of breakdown, relevant to questions about AI-mediated communication in crisis. COMM Lee, M. J. (2017). Pachinko. Grand Central Publishing.

Lee's four-generation saga of Korean immigrants in Japan operates as a sustained meditation on communication across diasporic time: what passes from grandmother to grandson, what is silenced, what becomes legible only after migration. The novel attends to specific media of memory — letters, gossip, prayer, the eponymous pachinko parlors — as infrastructures of belonging. Its method is patient historical realism, refusing the consolations of allegory. For COMM scholars at the intersection of media studies, diaspora, and intergenerational transmission, Pachinko dramatizes how silenced communication is itself a communicative act, and how diasporic media work against rather than within national publics.

Nonfiction

COMM Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language (pp. 128-138). Hutchinson. [Substituting essay; selecting full Hall book.]

COMM Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. Viking Penguin.

Postman's polemical study argues that television's entertainment-imperative restructures public discourse around image, brevity, and emotion at the expense of typographic rationality. His method is media-ecological cultural critique drawing on Innis and McLuhan. Amusing Ourselves to Death remains essential reading for COMM doctoral work, providing the foundational diagnosis of broadcast-era political communication. For platform-era candidates, Postman's analytic of medium-bias toward entertainment anticipates Tufekci's account of attention-economy effects on political discourse. COMM O'Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. Crown.

O'Neil's foundational popular study analyzes how proprietary algorithms in education, employment, credit, and policing function as "weapons of math destruction"—opaque, scaled, and harm-amplifying. Her method is quantitative critique with vivid case studies. Weapons of Math Destruction is essential reading for COMM/AI/equity doctoral work on algorithmic harm. For doctoral candidates, O'Neil provides the accessible analytic of proprietary algorithmic harm that pairs with more theoretical works (Zuboff, Pasquale) for comprehensive coverage. COMM Phillips, W. (2015). This is why we can't have nice things: Mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture. MIT Press.

Phillips's foundational study draws on ethnographic research with trolls to demonstrate trolling's structural continuity with mainstream culture rather than its supposed alterity. Her method is ethnographic platform studies. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things is essential reading for COMM/equity doctoral work on platform vernacular. For doctoral candidates, Phillips's analytic of trolling as cultural phenomenon, not aberration, prefigures contemporary scholarship on platform-mediated harassment, far-right radicalization, and the political economy of online cruelty. COMM Livingstone, S., & Sefton-Green, J. (2016). The class: Living and learning in the digital age. NYU Press.

Livingstone and Sefton-Green's foundational study draws on a year of ethnographic research with a London middle-school class to analyze digital media in everyday learning. Their method is digital school ethnography. The Class is essential reading for COMM doctoral work on platforms and education. For doctoral candidates, Livingstone and Sefton-Green provide methodological resources for studying how digital media reshape (or fail to reshape) educational practice and the inequality dynamics within those reshapings.